I have no idea who’s illustrating mine yet, but you can’t really lose with this list. The final lineup very charitably calls my story ‘brutal, desperate and real’, so it’d be kind of hilarious to see Kate Beaton do it.

I have a flight to catch and a lot to do before and on it, so hasn’t totally sunk in yet. Here’s my story, and here’s the comic that inspired the collection. Oh yeah, and here’s the awesome cover:

i love love LOVE your machine of death story! it really feels like a basis for all of the machine of death universe!
i googled you because i was surprised you weren’t one of the three people who directed the book. i wonder, were you one of the first people to write a machine of death story? did you come up with the idea for the story on your own or you had a chat with them yet? i’m really surprised that it’s the only ‘origin story’ for the machine in the compilation and it’s so good. thanks,

Thanks! No, I didn’t have any contact with Malki & co before submitting, except to ask a question about the rules. After submitting I figured the inventor idea was way too obvious and they’d have a hundred better takes on it.

The story I’ve submitted to Machine of Death 2 is intentionally a bit more niche in terms of subject matter, because most of my favourite stories in the original collection ended up being the unusual ones.